I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10 a while back. I did a clean install. Ever since then, my laptop's been generally slower. The GUI is generally laggy. I know you'll ask "Slow compared to what?" It's slow compared to Ubuntu 10. And it's much slower when compared to Windows 7 on the same system.

I'm using a Dell Latitude E6400, with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M, and 6 gigs of RAM. I have a high speed 1 TB disk, with plenty of empty space.

Has anyone observed this? Are there any people out there with the same hardware whose systems are very fast? Thanks.

Depending on your goals, a better question might be "how can I make Ubuntu faster" (answer: by turning off effects).
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AmandaJan 30 '12 at 21:27

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I tried both 11.04 and 11.10 on same PC - 11.04 was normally fast, while 11.10 was unnaturally slow. I have no idea why could that be, but it seems it isn't new Gnome (in 11.10) as i.e. Fedora 16 is just as fast as anyone would expected. My wild guess is some Compiz changes...
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zetahJan 30 '12 at 21:35

Amanda: While that's a nice idea, that's not the problem. I've only ever used basic effects, like Scale in Compiz and the basic drop shadow behind windows. These features have existed in many prior versions of Ubuntu. It wasn't until Ubuntu 11 that I noticed laggy performance. I'm just wondering 2 things: 1) Why this has happened and 2) How to fix it. It's not a question of turning off effects since they've worked well enough before.
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kedmondJan 30 '12 at 22:23

Zeta: Fedora 16 is fast? If it runs Gnome 3, I would be willing to give it a shot. Thanks for the advice.
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kedmondJan 30 '12 at 22:28

By the way, I don't think Gnome uses Compiz anymore since Gnome wanted "tighter integration". I'll need to read up on Fedora more. If it's fast, then I'll give it a whirl. Thanks!
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kedmondJan 30 '12 at 22:35

3 Answers
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It can be any number of reasons. Compiz is being rewritten, and it seems to be a little slower, currently. Linux has had some issues as well.

It's very difficult to say exactly what it is. What I can tell you is that you're not imagining it, and that Precise is very much faster and cooler. 11.10 in particular has been rather slow and hot. There's been major transitional work done, so maybe that's contributed to it as well. In any case, 12.04 is going to fix those things. The improvements are already more than noticeable.

You're right, Unity 2D was fast for me...but I didn't want to have to sacrifice the 3D effects that worked just fine in 10. I couldn't see any benefit that 11 was providing, so 11 with Unity 2D seemed like a huge downgrade.
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kedmondJan 31 '12 at 16:16